Divemedic

Business Math and Price Setting

From the posts about plumbers charging $1500 for small jobs. I am NOT saying that the plumber doesn’t have the right to ask for that price. It’s his business, after all. It’s just that all businesses are in competition. Plumber A is in competition with Plumber B, etc. The other half of that is that all businesses that offer some sort of labor are in competition with people who would do it themselves. Restaurants, plumbers, even gunsmiths. There is a limit to what you can charge for services before people say that it isn’t worth paying someone to do it. The customer then either does without, or they do it themselves.

For me, it’s math. I look at what it would cost me to do the job, then how long it will cost. Then I compare what the service business is asking for the job. Take lawn maintenance. I could mow my own lawn, but here in Florida that means about three hours per week to mow, edge, weed eat, and blow down the sidewalks in the summer, plus another three hours a month in winter. Then there is the cost of supplies, maintenance and fuel. So call it an average of two hours per week plus about $15 a month in supplies. My lawn guy charges me $85 a month. That means the guy is doing 8 hours of work for $60, so it costs me $7.50 an hour to get my lawn mowed. I don’t mow my lawn, even though I could.

I look at it as a pure financial transaction. Let’s say (to make the math easy) that you make $50 an hour at your job. It actually would be more beneficial to pay someone to do a job than it would to do it yourself, if the job was costing you less money than you would make in the time it took to do it yourself.

Now suppose that he increased his rate to $200 a month. I might start mowing my own lawn at that point. The plumbing job is the same. The plumber was charging me $1500 parts and labor to do a job that I could do myself for a total cost of $300 in parts and tools and four hours of my time. After materials and tools, I could do it myself and save $300 an hour. That’s far more than I make, so if it’s within my capabilities, it’s worth it to simply do it myself.

There is some risk that I will not do as good a job as the pro, but at what point does the juice become not worth the squeeze? We all need to develop these skills. When TSHTF, they will be worthwhile skills to have, and now is a good time to learn.

By Divemedic, ago

Black Ops

OK, so I couldn’t resist the play on words. Still, 20 US cities paid more than $80 million in “settlements“ to BLM and Antifa.

  • Seattle just agreed to pay $10 million to 50 rioters injured by police in 2020.
  • Denver is paying $4.7 million to 300 BLM rioters arrested in 2020.
  • Philadelphia is paying them $9 million.
  • New York City is shelling out $13 million.
  • In total, $890+ million in taxpayer dollars is going to pay out BLM protestors in 20 US cities.

Democrats are bankrolling rioters with our tax dollars so they can continue to riot. That’s why we continue to see the same people all over the country rioting for the latest causes. They’re employees — not activists. It’s an industry and we’re all paying for it.

This funding will be used to cause even more mayhem in the coming election year.

By Divemedic, ago

Resistance

Texas is telling the Feds and SCOTUS to GFY.

Then, Oklahoma joined them.

Now, so has Florida.

There are those who claim that it isn’t an invasion because the immigrants don’t have any guns. Not so fast, there. If you can have an unarmed insurrection, you can have an unarmed invasion.

Then Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming followed with their own support of Texas. Sixteen states with a combined population of more than 118 million people are pushing back as of the moment I am writing this.

So is this just election year posturing, or is this the beginning of Republicans pushing back? What do you think?

By Divemedic, ago

Pics

Here are pictures from someone who went and made one of the conversion kits for an AR. It is a 3D printed, drop in kit that converts a semiautomatic AR into select fire.

To the ATF: These are not my photos, they have never been in my physical presence, and I don’t even own a dog. I don’t have any weapons that you would consider illegal. I am publishing this strictly for educational purposes. I am advising people to never make one of these, because they are illegal and we are law abiding citizens.

By Divemedic, ago

The One Where Joe Blow Calls Me an Asshole

I apparently touched a nerve. Joe takes issue with me when I have a problem with plumbers charging $750 an hour for a simple job that a DIY homeowner can do for a fraction of the cost, including buying tools to do the job. Thinking that he is clever, he tries to turn it around on me by saying that

That remindeds me of the look on the ER Doctor’s face when I told my son I use Super Glue instead of paying $1500 dollars for a 3rd rate butterfly stitch and a bandaid.

I’ve got news for you- I agree with you. People come to the ED for some of the dumbest reasons, and if you went to the ED for a butterfly strip and a bandaid, you are part of that group. I see people every day who come in for flu symptoms and other minor maladies instead of buying over the counter medications. When I was a street medic, I often was called to the dumbest things you’ve ever heard of. Women with menstrual cramps, a woman who was hot and didn’t know how to change her thermostat, a woman with a flat tire.

Each of them could have benefitted from knowing how to do it themselves. The same as the plumbing job. Know that the plumbing company that is charging me $750 isn’t paying their employees anything close to that amount. It isn’t the professional making a living from his skills that is charging that kind of money. That guy is likely making less than $30 an hour.

When I was working as an electrician in the mid 90s, the company that I worked for was charging $100 an hour with a 4 hour minimum for emergency service while paying me $11 an hour. So the company got $400 and paid me $44. My service vehicle was a beat up old postal jeep for a year, and the second year I got upgraded to a used UPS delivery truck. I get that there is other overhead, but not that much. At $750 an hour, you are looking at charging 25 times the rate that they are paying that plumber.

As a business owner both past and present, I understand the costs associated with running a business are higher than than the costs paid to the person doing the job, but charging 20 or 30 times more than what you are paying your plumbers goes beyond that and causes people to want to do the job themselves.

Remember that a business isn’t just just competing against other businesses, but also against the DIY community. If McDonald’s charges $100 for a burger, people will go to Burger King or to another competitor. If they all charge that much, people will just stay home and cook burgers for themselves.

The same is true of any business. Installing that sink was a 15 minute job that cost me $50 in parts, yet the plumber wanted $600 for it. I found a plumber working on a nearby construction site and offered him $100 to do it. He agreed, but then didn’t show, so I did it myself.

I once had a drainage problem in my old house and called a plumber. Actually, a few plumbers over a six year period. No one could fix the problem. One plumber ran a camera on a snake down my drains and didn’t find the problem, then told me there was nothing wrong and billed me $500. The sinks clogged again three days later. After six years, I finally found the problem- I changed every AAV valve in the house (it cost me $100) and never had the problem again.

I do lots of stuff for myself- I repair brakes on my car, do my own oil changes, do many of my own home repairs, and cook my own food. Are there times I hire a pro, recognizing that the job is beyond my capabilities? You bet your ass, but I am NOT paying someone $600 to hook up a sink or $900 to hook up a water conditioner. A job I learned to do myself by watching a YouTube video. That’s part of what being a functional human that doesn’t need to call people charging inflated prices for something simple means.

I will also say to Joe Blow that his comment violated the rule that this blog has about personal attacks. I allowed it because he is a long time commenter, but that is the only mulligan you get:

 I hope your hack-job on the water pipe bursts and floods your brand new basement and your homeowners denies your claim because you were unlicensed.

The joke is on you, asshole. Houses in Florida don’t have basements, and the entire plumbing job is in the garage or just outside of it, which is below the grade of the rest of the house. That’s what “shit goes downhill” part of the rules of plumbing covers. See how easy it is?

By Divemedic, ago

Forcing Homeowners to House Illegals?

A councilman of Napierville, Illinois (a suburb of Chicago) is proposing a signup list for families to house illegal immigrants. The system is to be voluntary, for now.

Whenever I was confronted by people who wanted to feed and shelter homeless bums, I used to ask them how many bums were they hosting in their own homes. After all, if you aren’t willing to pay to house and feed the homeless in your own home, then how can you force me to do so (through taxes)?

Here is your chance, liberals. Do you really support sanctuary cities, or is that just part of the “not in my backyard” syndrome that allows you to virtue signal without skin in the game?

By Divemedic, ago

Hacking the AR

Speaking of DIY, here is a great example of hacking the AR into select fire. As precision machining, 3D printing, and 3D metal printing becomes increasingly miniaturized and cost effective, the debate about gun control becomes more and more useless.

I am posting the STEP files on the training materials page.
By Divemedic, ago